Sensitive viewers, welcome to Planet Earth: Our Loving Home. Scientific
experts fear that our world is in the midst of its sixth mass extinction
and say its cause is human actions.

In a two-part series we'll
explore the challenges facing global biodiversity including the extreme
dangers posed by global warming, the necessity of species preservation
to ensure the survival of humankind as well as the most effective tools
for biodiversity conservation and mitigating climate change.

Janez Potocnik - European Commissioner for Environment (M):
Biodiversity, it's an issue which was sometimes too much in the shadow.
Also in the shadow of the climate change, which is extremely important,
but we should understand that biodiversity is actually the other side
of the same coin.

HOST: A study published in the US journal
Science examined the biodiversity levels between １９５４ and ２００４ in the UK
as measured by approximately ２０,０００ British government-funded
naturalists who collected data on the nation's native butterflies, birds
and plants.

It was found that between １９７４ and ２００４, ７０％ of the
butterfly species saw population declines as did ５４％ of bird species
and ２８％ of plant species.

In ２００４, the International Union for
the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which publishes the well-known Red
List of Threatened Species estimated in a report entitled 『A Global
Species Assessment』 that plants and animals are going extinct １００ to
１,０００ times faster than the background rate, or the natural rate of
extinction before humans became the primary cause of extinctions, based
on fossil records.

In early October ２０１０, Simon Stuart, chair of
the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's Species
Survival Commission pointed out that prominent Harvard University, USA
biologist Dr. EO Wilson's previous estimates that within two decades the
rate of species loss could be １０,０００ times the background rate appears
to be on the mark.

Commenting on Dr. Wilson's predictions, he
stated, 『All the evidence is he's right. Some people claim it already
is that ... things can only have deteriorated because of the drivers of
the losses, such as habitat loss and climate change, [are] all getting
worse."